I'll let those who more closely follow stats explain this one to me. Bill James in his latest book, according to Phil Rogers, says Konerko is the worst defensive first baseman in baseball having cost the Sox 11 runs.

Now I only know what I see and that's the fact that Paul's glove consistently saves runs by his digging out bad throws particularly from Ramirez.

I do agree with James' other contention, that Konerko is the slowest runner in MLB over the last 10 seasons.

Konerko has minimal range these days and it is possible that after his concussion this year his defense suffered some but there is no way he is the worst defensive first baseman in baseball. He saves the Sox a ton of runs by digging balls out of the dirt.

I know that there are some in the sabermetric community that believe you don't have to watch a baseball game (Billy Beane was once quoted as saying he would be a better GM if he never watched a game) but defense is really one of those things where you need to watch a guy every day to get a sense of how bad or how good he is. The more you watch Konerko the more you appreciate his defense.

Konerko has minimal range these days and it is possible that after his concussion this year his defense suffered some but there is no way he is the worst defensive first baseman in baseball. He saves the Sox a ton of runs by digging balls out of the dirt.

I know that there are some in the sabermetric community that believe you don't have to watch a baseball game (Billy Beane was once quoted as saying he would be a better GM if he never watched a game) but defense is really one of those things where you need to watch a guy every day to get a sense of how bad or how good he is. The more you watch Konerko the more you appreciate his defense.

I think a lot of people in the sabermetric community will tell you that defensive stats are rather flawed at this point.

I call bull**** on this one. This is something great for talk radio hosts but I can't for the life of me think of when Konerko has cost us big time over there. Sure he has a few errors now and then but if they are saying his range is what cost them then I disagree.

Like someone mentioned he has bailed out Alexi on numerous occasions and probably saved us more runs than he's cost us.

I love PK, want him to finish his career in Chicago, and have a statue one day. He digs everything out of the dirt and snags everything hit at him. It is the hits that go past him that, due to lack of range, cost runs as opposed to throws from infielders. Still, I can't see him being the worst defender as long as Fielder is around and it is price well worth paying to have him on our team.

That's crazy. I think the stat people who keep making up things to justify their position must be trying to justify their salaries after the giants this year. To say Paulie is worst first basemen on defense tells me they have ray Charles and Stevie Wonder calculating their stats. What a joke.